Surely anything aside from O’Brien would’ve already leaked?

Best I can make out, this isn’t being broadcast, not even the Philippines, but audio commentary available. Would obviously like to watch, in case anyone’s had any luck.

No luck.

They’ve got Bennett on co-comms… but nobody’s able to watch or hear it? Am I missing something?

Asking purely due to the fact there’s no other FA Cup game on and ITV4 (regularly broadcasting FA Cup this season)‘s schedule is ‘The Chase Celebrity Special’ followed by ‘Monster Carp’ and then the original Mad Max. Surely we could muster more of us tuning in to tonight’s match than there are fanatical carp botherers?

How do we find out if there’s a chance of watching this? Seems odd that neither BBC nor ITV are interested, given it’s their remit to broadcast it.

It’s like we’re smashing a random footballer generator if today’s names have any credibility/accuracy. If we’re going to sign someone today (I genuinely believe we’re trying but I think we’re failing to) then it needs to address the two big issues we face, which are losing the midfield battle and not scoring enough goals. There are all manner of approaches with the latter and Sorba Thomas is a signing that could help with that. The former is very much narrower. Strong, confident and capable centre midfielder. If the staff believe nobody is better than Morton in that sense, then I don’t see why they’d sign anyone. If the staff see it as the weak point that apparently everyone sees it as, then they’ll sign someone to that description. Ignoring any restrictions, it should be Chalobah over O’Brien for me, but I’ll wait and see.

Wasn’t Duncan Ferguson due an interview or something? This administration could really mess up a managerial appointment, the kind of decision that sees us fall at least a division. JDT leaving within a year of being appointed, because of issues around recruitment is borderline “basket case club” territory. The outcome on the pitch might not be much worse short-term, but for a manager who has consistently toed the line on “budget” to become exasperated by transfer windows sends a reminder to anyone we’re trying to bring to the club that the owners make us a no-go. It’s so obvious. They’re so out of their depth.

Christ.

Is £100k/week playing staff reductions a hypothetical here or do you know something for definite?

Watching him yesterday, he looks a good professional with leadership ability and natural footballing intelligence but he’s just not quick enough. Was surprised to learn he was only 28, he moves like he’s lost a yard of pace over the years. Possibly why he hasn’t broken through the ceiling as everything else about his game is a good quality. Still, not for me.

Very late to this thread but it’s been a fascinating read, as so much resonates. First fell in love in ‘94, at 5 years old. Memories of my first game are a blur, I couldn’t really see the pitch or anything but it was warm and busy. My mum was there and that’s the only game I am aware she’s been to. Never looked back. First fell out of love 12/13 season. I was living in Berlin, so you kind of fall away from everything UK-centric unless you really try and it did not feel worth trying. I suppose even ten years ago, the world felt a bigger place. I also lived next door to a Dortmund pub (Intertank, on Manteuffelstr., directly opposite a very good Korean restaurant) which was both very rowdy and very welcoming. Watching Klopp manage Lewandowski, Götze, Gündogan et al was somewhat more compelling than watching what was happening at Ewood. I remember a few matches early that season, on weird foreign streams, but the transition to spending Saturday afternoons next door was swift, if a little hollow. Been in London for 9 years now and used to catch all the games down here, seeing familiar faces, but not having anyone to go with (friends move) means I don’t bother. I’ll come up for games now and again to see my brother and I’ll be up for Burnley in March. I do get a thrill still, stood outside the Blackburn End, noticing how much smaller it seems to me now. I also spend far too much time reading threads on this site at key moments (matches, transfer windows, etc). But I do have the nagging feeling that it’s all a bit of a waste of my own time. Really didn’t care about the World Cup. Normally, I am very much into the World Cup and everything around it but nothing engaged me, not even the final. Objectively an enormously significant event and some drama, but in prior years that would have had me climbing the walls. I think I managed one beer at home. If there’s going to be anything I love in football, it’s going to be Rovers. We have the best kit, best badge and nothing else will really make me feel the things we feel about the clubs we follow, as fans. But everything seems so much worse now. We’re an omnishambles as an organisation and the footballing output leaves a lot to be desired at times. Worse still, football and its fans. The Twitter fans, the sportswashing, the Americanisation of the sport, the money, the endlessness of it all and - the absolute worst - “Penaldo and Pessi” discourse. Still, as I said, I’ll be at the Burnley game, double cheeseburger from the death van and two-pinter in each hand, asking my pals “has the Blackburn End always been that small?”

Nor did Roque Santa Cruz, really.

May be alone in this, but I don’t rate Obafemi and don’t think he’s a good character from what’s been written about him. One or two things, fine, but he’s consistently got problems around him. Don’t think he’s invested enough to contribute when the chips are down. I cannot imagine that anyone wants to be leaving business late in a window/near to deadline. I’ve done some of my best work at the wire but I usually have a lot of factors under my control and I’m not relying on inaction/underperformance from competitors, so we have our work cut out. The more time I spend with this, the more apparent that the blame is squarely at boardroom level. With a proper corporate infrastructure and genuine custodians at the ownership level, we’d be much further along. I do personally believe that the footballing structure is one to stick with, both Broughton and Tomasson. Broughton’s job is a 5-year one and Tomasson probably 3-year. Major failures (relegation dogfight, probably) curtail both but probably little else, so long as progress is made. I think this season is one of growing pains and it’s disappointing viewing but I’m more accepting. I think I’m being generous, but I would say that the minimum standard is kicking the figurative and/or literal shit out of Burnley in March. Anything less on that day needs to be atoned for.

Every link I have tried so far has been for So’ton or had 10000000 pop ups, I hate the internet.

Not directly relevant, but my morning made me draw parallels with the frustration among some on the board. my company just lost its biggest active client at lunchtime. There’s nothing on our side that has gone wrong and we couldn’t really have done more. The client has just found better value for themselves elsewhere and gone there. That’s business. It’s enormously frustrating but it’s not an indictment on our abilities, our offering, our effort or who we are/what we’re building. It happens, we do it to competitors all the time. Following the sporting exploits of a privately-owned limited company means there’s very little scope for transparency on processes and ultimately, we only know what they want to tell us, when they want to. That’s frustrating for us, but it doesn’t mean the club is doing anything wrong, per se. We just have a very specific viewpoint on the successes of the club. I imagine our shareholders will be less than thrilled when we tell them, but they’ve got the contextual knowledge of business and they’ll back us to bounce back. Sometimes, as fans we don’t have that contextual knowledge and that’s okay. Anyway, this morning, I have a lot of sympathy for the recruitment setup, operating in difficult circumstances and even more difficult market conditions. It’s business and sometimes your best offering isn’t enough.

Not as I read it. Sign-off comes from India, I assume, so they’re likely hamstrung by having an approval process from the 1950s, i.e. “leave it with us while we deliberate.” I suspect more blame falls on Waggott for not conveying the need for a swift approval process to the owners, but if he pushes there/criticises, the next communication he receives is his P45. There’s very little wrong with the club that doesn’t start with the owners. They’re simultaneously keeping the club afloat with cash injections and causing it to need constant cash injections by being so bad at owning a football club.

That’s as may be and I wasn’t saying he’ll end up here, but I’m interested to see where he ends up. I suspect he’s not gonna be up there for long, given the Gelhardt signing, is all.

26, so not too old, not too young.

Apropos of absolutely nothing and with no knowledge other than they’re at some kind of impasse with him, but… if Mowbray has guaranteed playing time to Gelhardt and Leeds (as is being suggested “online”), what happens with Ross Stewart? I read they’ve offered £10k/week to him, which is three times his wage currently. Even with our limited wage structure, we could beat that. They’d want a lot of money and both Bournemouth and Brentford are supposed to be looking at him. Remote hope of this being incredibly under the radar? Fanciful, but I do fancy it.

How far down the option list was Thomas? Was Gelhardt ever on? Do we have a tough time landing targets? A bit nonplussed by it but obviously I hope he makes a huge contribution to the rest of the season. Recruitment is stat-driven and the stat shared above about crosses is very telling. Wonder if Sharpe dug that out himself or it was furnished to him by his source.

Lewis Travis to Millwall would be staggering. Named captain 6 months ago. Can understand being dropped for performance reasons, it’s not unprecedented. Being sold would be a real escalation. Not a good sign from the outside, looking in.

Bristol City’s home form is very patchy for the past couple of months and they tend to score late. Generally do well when they score early. We need to settle and keep it very tight when doing so, build into the game and aim to attack the goal in the second half of the first half (🤨). It wouldn’t be my starting lineup, but you’d think Vale alternating between coming deeper for flicks to Diaz and playing as a poacher, with Dack making occasional runs from deep and Hedges crossing from deep/playing diagonals to Diaz are the routes to goal. If that’s the plan, we have time to build into that over the 90, but we simply cannot concede early, it’ll totally kill the game for us.

Eh up, dad’s had a beer.